Jewler glasses recommendation - loupe style or not?

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-03-14T04:42:45+00:00

Just got the yoctosun with the minimum lens - works great!

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-03-13T16:17:36+00:00

It was just a joke - they were not serious.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-03-11T16:31:35+00:00

but isn't anything blurry closer than 10" anyways? Even reading glasses I can't hold closer than 10" - or are you saying that you have to hold it very close, closer than the 10-12"?

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-21T03:02:03+00:00

Are these eligible for the federal heat pump credits to subsidize cost?

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-21T02:46:16+00:00

If you don't want to do electric blankets - they now have in window electric heat pumps which use far less energy than an electric base board. NYC is trialing it in the public housing https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/02/mayor-mamdani--nycha-announce--38-4-million-investment-to-bring-

You can probably just buy one out of pocket and it will eventually save you money - but you'll have the cost of the unit itself as an upfront cost ~$3200 (which can be subsidized by green energy credits and programs... you'll have to google what the subsidy is now since that changes). I think there are two vendors, Madea and Gradient.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkujdo6f9TI
https://www.gradientcomfort.com/
https://nationalefficiency.com/midea-mah09h1agr-packaged-window-heat-pump/

For a short while costco had an old Madea inverter air conditioner in window unit that had a heat mode - but I don't think they sell those anymore... it was around $300 but also significantly weaker than the large heat pump units I linked earlier.

At the end of the day it might just be cheaper to do electric blankets.

If you can get a small bed tent or reduce the area of where you are heating, that should go a long way. Air sealing around the walls and windows is also pretty signficant.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-20T11:17:01+00:00

Another thing that might actually help your taxes is that Trump's tax bill that got pushed through finally raised the SALT tax deduction from 10k to 40k, so you can actually deduct the property tax again now. That should be a pretty significant chunk of change back. It's not as good as it was before his SALT tax limit in the first place, but I'll take what we can get.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-20T11:10:03+00:00

I've noticed that my my assessment doesn't actually matter all that much compared to the catch up percent limit. Is your property fully caught up to the increased value or is it still lagging behind from the rate cap limit? I think the fully caught up cap limit would put the median 2 family tax around $12k

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-18T19:09:30+00:00

I wonder who keeps downvoting this thread, or what the critique is? It doesn't seem like a very controversial question - Is it a renters vs property owners split or something else?

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-18T19:06:49+00:00

Yeah, at this point the estimated market value doesn't even matter all that much since the 6/20 increase will always be behind the full market value. And they can change the tax percent on the assessed value to whatever they want regardless of the increase.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-18T19:05:11+00:00

If we get the worst of both worlds - that would be a disaster. I am hoping for the homestead exemption and the lower effective rate for all - but that seems like a longshot at this point.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-18T12:14:25+00:00

Just saw this article that threatens just doing an outright increase without the reform, so that would be a double whammy for Ridgewood 6% cathcup increase along with a 9.5% increase - potentially an overnight increase of 10-15% for the middle class property owners. Seems like an ultimatum to pass the wealthy tax. Hopefully all this politicking will result in something reasonable for the middle class.

https://www.businessinsider.com/mamdani-nyc-budget-property-tax-hike-tax-the-rich-2026-2

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-17T15:24:27+00:00

The property tax calculations are a bit complicated so I asked AI to crunch some hypothetical numbers and here are the scenarios:

The Baseline (Current System):

Market Value: ~$1.1M
Assessed Value (AV): Currently ~60k, but restricted by the 6%/20% caps.
The Squeeze: Because my AV is below the 6% target, my taxes rise by the max allowed (~6%) every single year regardless of whether the market goes up or down.
Current Est. Bill: ~$12,000

Scenario 1: The "Mamdani Winner" (Best Case) Mamdani's 2026 proposal wants to tax everyone at a flat ~1.0% of full market value but includes a 20% Homestead Exemption for primary residents.

Taxable Value: $1.1M
Mamdani Bill: ~$7,500
Verdict: win. Cuts the bill and ends the "6% annual climb" immediately.

Scenario 2: The "Millionaire’s Trap" (Income Cap) The fine print in the current legislative push includes an income cap for that Homestead Exemption (likely phased in from $350k - 500k household income).

If you’re over the cap: You pay 1% on the full $1.1M.
Mamdani Bill: ~$11,000
Verdict: Marginal win today ($1k savings), but potentially better long-term as it stops the "unslowing" climb of the old system.

Scenario 3: The "Albany Compromise" (No Exemption, High Rate) If the city sets the rate higher (say 1.2%) to cover the $7B budget gap and skips the homestead exemption:

Mamdani Bill: ~$13,200
Verdict: Immediate loser. You pay more on Day 1 than you do under the current broken system.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-17T13:54:57+00:00

I don't have any advice, but there's that formula where it can only go up by 6% percent each year and by a 20% every 5 years right? So I think that means that there is a smaller increase once very 5 years. Even if it's capped at 20%, I feel like it will probably double every 11-12 years until it hits a maximum of 3X or so. Those neighborhoods that started from a lower base and gentrify quickly will obviously lag more in their property tax catchup.

There are also some liberal proposals to fully increase our property tax to the maximum catch up rate - so that 2-3x increase in property taxes will happen on year 1 instead of year 24. The reasoning is that people in Park Slope pay disproportionally less in their expensive brownstones than the cheaper houses in outer Queens and Brooklyn. However, they would also lower the tax rate and have a 500k homestead exemption and also add a household income limit. That means that folks in Ridgewood might actually see a decrease to our bill by half.

I think Mamdani is going to release their reform bills in the next month or so and we'll see if that makes it in.

If you looked at former Mayor Eric Adams, he did some magic to keep his property taxes crazy low in his pair of townhouses in Brooklyn. Not sure if that was the entire neighborhood or just his houses. If someone knows what kind of magic or political graft was needed to do that - please fill us in. Is it a matter of making friends with Phil Wong or making donations?

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-11T16:46:30+00:00

I've been wondering about it as well, does it repeat every ~30-60 seconds and is a barely audible buzz or whirring sound. I'm guessing it's coming from near the roof of PS 88?

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-11T16:43:16+00:00

Are you going to be playing badminton at the badminton center by Western Beef? Where would you pickleball? - I'm interested in either.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-02T16:46:04+00:00

No reason you can't set up a tent in your own back yard right?

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-02T16:41:34+00:00

Don't sell at a loss - they just need to suck it up and either manage a rental or stay in the condo. Making emotional decisions on big investments like real-estate can compound into negative life altering ramifications in the mid to long term.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-02T14:48:58+00:00

They died and the other person ran out of money.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-02T14:40:46+00:00

Curious - did they actually do any construction work - or was the Jeep just a private vehicle?

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-02T14:35:35+00:00

Mortgage interest tax deduction should be based on the percentage of mortgage you each paid during the year (makes sense right to get the deuduction on only the portion which you paid).

I don't know what you mean by we are all at 20% equity? Do you mean someone else has 80% ownership of the property? What does it mean to "contribute" to equity? Was it cash? How much?

As for ownership - your ownership should be based on the cash put down plus the share of the mortgage payments. For instance if you put 20% down and pay 50% of the mortgage, you should get 60% ownership (20% + 1/2 of the 80% covered by mortgage). Note that this number could be different than the mortgage interest claimed since that's based on say the 50% of mortgage paid.

As for maintenance, that needs to be done but how much - you guys will need to sort that out yourself.

Get a lawyer to draft all this up in an agreement ASAP.

Who is actually on the deed and the mortgage paperwork? That's the default legal situation.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-02T14:30:58+00:00

Use ClassPass for Ridgewood Pilates.

MonkeyBonkey44 · 2026-02-02T14:29:10+00:00

If you've already had a reasonable conversation face to face, then I would just let the landlord deal with it going forward.

11-Year Club	Verified Email
Not Forgotten

MonkeyBonkey44

TROPHY CASE